


All I Want for Christmas is You

by skarlatha



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Zombies, Christmas, Christmas Magic, Hershel is Actually Santa Claus, Like Literal Christmas Magic, Like With Reindeer and Everything, M/M, Rickyl Writers' Group, Rickyl Writers' Group December 2015 Challenge, Second Chances, past rick grimes/lori grimes - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 10:37:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 20,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5536757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skarlatha/pseuds/skarlatha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five years ago, Rick broke Daryl's heart on Christmas, and ever since then Daryl has hated the holiday. This year, Daryl is drunk in a bar when Santa Claus shows up and asks him what he wants for Christmas, and still, after all this time, there's really only one answer to that question. </p><p>Now if only Daryl would stop being stubborn and just accept his Christmas miracle...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TWDObsessive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TWDObsessive/gifts).



> This fic is a Christmas gift for [TWDObsessive](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TWDObsessive), who is brilliant and wonderful and amazing and deserves all the fics ever. I love you! It is also my entry into the Rickyl Writer's Group's December 2015 "Winter Romance" challenge. This one's unbeta-ed so hopefully it's OK!
> 
>  ~~Also, this fic isn't quite what you would call "finished," which is against my personal rules but I figured if I held off on posting it would be obsolete after today. Soooo... hope you get hooked enough to finish reading a Christmas fic even if it's not finished until after Christmas!~~ This fic is now complete at 11 chapters.

It’s not the nicest bar in Georgia, but it’s clean and fairly quiet and the bartender, a tough-looking Hispanic guy wearing a Santa hat, is exactly the type of bartender Daryl wants this time of year: a guy who keeps his glass full without _talking_ to him. So all in all, Daryl figures he’s gotten drunk in worse places and this one is as good a place to drown his sorrows as any. He’d meant to just come in for a quick beer before heading home, but then there’d been a special on some kind of Christmas-themed shots that were, as close as Daryl could tell, mostly Jack Daniels with a splash of peppermint schnapps and some cinnamon on top, and after a few of those, he wasn’t in any shape to go back out to his truck.

So now he sits, a glass of water in front of him while he tries to sober up enough to feel safe driving the winding mountain road up to the cabin he calls… well, not _home_ exactly. Home isn’t here, in these mountains, in that house. Home is somewhere in Kentucky, most likely asleep by now, with that fucking society bitch beside him where Daryl ought to be.

He sighs and takes another sip of water. That wasn’t very good of him, he thinks to himself. After all, it’s not like she’d known what she was ruining when she came in the picture. And he’s sure that if he’d met her under other circumstances, he would have… well, probably not _liked_ her, not really. He’s too hard-country to get along with someone as daintily upper-class as Lori. But at least he wouldn’t have _minded_ her. So he shouldn’t call her a bitch. The _real_ bitch in this situation is the man she’s married. Credit where credit is due, he thinks sullenly, and he downs another gulp of water like it’s another shot, straight down his throat with as little touching his tongue as possible.

He’s at the end of the bar, sitting on the short side of the counter so he can look down the main length of the bar. People file in and out, some staying a while and some just grabbing a drink and heading out to the pool tables or the shadowed booths against the walls, and Daryl watches them all, narrow eyes sliding over people with lives he doesn’t know anything about.

He’s lived in his little cabin for several years now and he knows a few people in the area, but none of them are here tonight. In fact, that’s why he’d picked this place--it’s a little out of the way, a little too far from town to really attract people he might know. And that’s what he wants tonight. Nobody to ask him why he’s so miserable, no one to judge him. And besides, this place is a lot less festive than his usual haunts are this time of year, and that’s important too.

Oh, sure, there’s tinsel. There’s a wreath on the door and another one on the back wall, and the top shelf of the bar is bedecked in Christmas lights. But the jukebox is playing Hank Williams and not fucking Sinatra or whoever sings the shitty Christmas songs he used to like so much. And the bartender _is_ wearing a Santa hat, but it’s low-key, just a velvety red hat and not a sparkling light-up abomination like it could be. So it’s better. No Christmas cheer being forced upon him. Christmas cheer is bullshit anyway.

He thinks back to five years ago, the way the red and green lights had reflected in eyes as clear and blue as the morning sky. The smell of gingerbread cookies cooling on the counter and the way Daryl had felt as he sank down onto the man he’d thought loved him. The heat and the passion, the sense of _right,_ the way they’d kissed as they both came apart, gasping into the heated air around them as Mariah Carey played in the background, _all I want for Christmas is you_.

Fuck it. He’s not going to be sober enough to drive up the mountain before the bar closes anyway. Might as well get just fucking hammered and sleep it off in his truck. He catches the bartender’s eye and flags him over, orders a Jack and Coke and tosses it back in big, sloppy gulps before ordering another one and going a bit slower this time, nursing the drink and enjoying how his vision starts to move slower than his eyes do.

There’s an old man down at the far end of the bar, a tall guy with stark white hair and a neatly-kept beard, and Daryl snorts in derision at the almost comically ugly Christmas sweater the man is wearing. But at least it gives him something to entertain him, watching the old man as he asks a pretty woman at the end of the bar what she wants for Christmas in a way that--shockingly--sounds sincere and not pervy. Daryl takes a sip of his drink and perks his ears, and he can just make out the woman’s reply: a new iPhone and a Starbucks gift card. The old man smiles and turns to the woman on the other side of him, asks the same question and gets the same answer, except this time it’s a new tablet and a spa certificate.

Daryl rolls his eyes. Nobody’s going to give him anything for Christmas, unless you count the free shoe rental coupons his boss had given him for the local bowling alley, which Daryl certainly does not. And anyway, even if someone does, it won’t be what he wants.

No. What he _used to_ want. Daryl glares at his glass and takes another big swig. He’d been young back then. Stupid. Blinded by ridiculous things like _hope_ and _love_ and the way water ran down the deep V of his lover’s collarbone as Daryl kissed him in the shower, his hands on the man’s cheeks and his heart tangled somewhere in the man’s ribcage. But none of that had been real, and fuck him for making Daryl believe that it had been.

Daryl reaches for his glass again and frowns at it when he realizes that it’s empty. He drains the last drops from it and slams it down on the counter, then calls the bartender over and asks for another drink.

The bartender raises an eyebrow. “I think maybe you’ve had enough.”

“Fuck you,” Daryl says, then immediately regrets it because pissing off the bartender is counter-productive to getting a refill. “Sorry ‘bout that. Listen…” he says, trailing off meaningfully to let the other man supply his name.

“Martinez. Not that you’ll remember that tomorrow.”

“Martinez,” Daryl repeats. “Listen, Martinez, I fuckin’ hate Christmas an’ another Jack and Coke is the only thing that’ll get my mind off’a that. So be my buddy an’ just… just get me another one, man. C’mon.”

“You need to sober up, dude,” Martinez says. “How ‘bout I get you another water instead?”

Daryl sighs. “Come on, man. I need to stop _thinkin’_. ‘Bout Christmas. ‘Bout _him_. C’mon. I need…” He trails off, his fingers tingling with the way his lover’s hair had felt tangled in them. Motherfucker. It isn’t usually like this. For most of the year he doesn’t think about it, doesn’t even care. That’s all in his past and it usually doesn’t bother him. But Christmas always gets to him. Always reminds him of the day his life went to shit. And fuck, he’d _loved_ Christmas before and now it just made him want to start stuffing the last can of Who Hash in a big burlap sack like a fuckin’ redneck Grinch. And fuck him for that, too. For ruining Christmas for Daryl. He widens his eyes as much as he can and attempts to give Martinez puppy-dog eyes to win the man over.

Martinez sighs and holds out a hand. “Give me your keys and I’ll give you another drink.”

Daryl reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out his keys, then jingles them a little and drops them into the bartender’s outstretched hand. Martinez rolls his eyes and mixes Daryl another drink. It has a little less alcohol in it than the previous ones and Daryl notices--of course he does--but he figures he’s pushed his luck already just asking for another one in the first place and so he can’t really protest too much without risking getting tossed out on his ass.

So instead, he sips at his new drink and watches as the old man with the beard makes his slow way down the bar, asking the same question to everyone and getting the same materialistic, bullshit answers. PS4s and ski trips and a new set of golf clubs. A new car stereo, a pair of expensive cowboy boots, a cashmere sweater, a new guitar. Daryl frowns and leans forward against the bar a little more, his forearms flat to the counter, and when the bearded man slides onto the barstool next to him, he looks over at him and growls.

“Ain’t no need askin’ me what I want for Christmas, old man. You can just move on to your next victim.”

The man raises his eyebrows. “I’m sure you must want _something_.”

Daryl rolls his eyes, taking another sip of his drink. “Didn’t say I didn’t want nothin’. Just said wasn’t no need for you to ask.”

“Why not?” the old man asks, tilting his head curiously. “What if I said I could give you anything you asked for?”

Daryl snorts derisively at that. “Sure you could.”

“I can. I’m Santa Claus.”

“Shit,” Daryl says, tilting his head back and staring at the ceiling as if there’s something interesting up there. “You’re more wasted than I am.”

“Humor me.” The old man puts a hand on Daryl’s shoulder and Daryl shrugs it off and looks back down at him with anger glittering in his eyes at the touch. “Tell me what you want for Christmas.”

“Nothin’ you can do to get me what I want,” he bites out, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. “And fuck you for sayin’ you can. Matter of fact, fuck _all_ these bitches. Assholes asking for stupid shit like clothes and golf clubs when don’t none of that matter. Who _gives_ a shit what kind of stereo you have in your fucking car? I could sit here and rattle off a fuckin’ laundry list of dumb shit that I’d like to have that don’t mean nothin’. Fancy new electric razor or a pair of crocodile skin boots. New crossbow with one’a them diamond-polished laser sights. But fuck all that.” He stops, blinks in surprise at how much he’d said, how much vitriol dripped from his words. “Don’t mean nothin’ in the end,” he finishes, much more quietly, and he chugs the rest of his drink.

“Daryl,” the old man says softly, resting his hand on Daryl’s back as the redneck slumps forward to lay his cheek against the cold bartop. “What do you want for Christmas?”

“Goddammit,” Daryl murmurs, feeling his vision going fuzzy and dark at the edges. “I just want Rick.”


	2. Chapter 2

It’s early afternoon when Daryl finally wakes up, curled up in his own bed under his blankets and feeling like shit.

He slowly sits up, his head pounding, and grinds the heel of his palm into his eye socket to alleviate the throbbing pressure behind it. God, he can’t remember shit about last night--just a vague sense that he’d been sad and angry and had yelled at an old man who’d said he was Santa. He definitely can’t remember how he got home, although he’s reasonably sure that he hadn’t driven himself on account of he’s alive in his bed and not dead at the bottom of a ravine. The road leading up the mountain to his house isn’t for the faint of heart even in the best conditions, and he’s pretty sure the bartender had control of his keys anyway.

A thought hits him that maybe he’d broken his unofficial vow of celibacy and been driven home by a one-night stand, but he glances over at Rick’s side of the bed and it’s empty like always, the sheets smooth and unwrinkled, the pillow fluffed with no indentation.

And that’s not _Rick’s_ side of the bed anymore, goddammit. It never had been, technically speaking, as Daryl had sold the last bed he slept with Rick in on Craigslist and then gotten this one when he moved to the mountains. Just like everything else in this cabin, it’s blank, with no memories attached to it, and that’s the way Daryl likes it.

He stands up, blinking a few times to see if that will make his head hurt less, then makes his way into the kitchen and downs the better part of a bottle of water before heading for the bathroom to brush his teeth and find some Tylenol to soothe the raging beast inside his skull. The whole house smells like fuckin’ Christmas, too, even though Daryl is sure he hasn’t bought any kind of scented shit that even vaguely resembles cinnamon and ginger and whatever else makes up that very particular scent, and it pisses him off but first he needs a shower and some clothes that don’t smell like Jack and desperation. He’ll deal with why his house smells weird later.

//

A little later, Daryl’s headache has dulled down to a manageable level and he’s found some “Deep Woods Scent” bug spray to dispel the Christmas aroma. His truck isn’t outside in its usual spot, and that worries him, but it’s not like it was a great truck anyway and so he’s reasonably sure no one would bother stealing it. He finds a years-old phone book in the back of a junk drawer in the kitchen and looks up the bar he’d been drinking at, then calls the number.

“Caesar’s Roadhouse, Martinez speaking.”

A dull, clunky bell rings in the back of Daryl’s mind at the name. “Hey, my name’s Daryl Dixon. I was there last night an’ I was wondering if my truck’s still there.”

“Yeah, man. Still here. I have your keys if you can find a ride to get over here and pick it up.”

Daryl sighs, rubbing his temple with the hand not holding the phone. “Can’t believe I need to ask this, but… do you happen to know how the hell I got home last night?”

Martinez laughs a little. “Yeah. Hershel took you home. I had to help him drag your drunk ass out the door and dump you in his station wagon, but he said he’d manage gettin’ you in your house.”

Daryl frowns, but he really has nothing to say to that. Some good ol’ boy Samaritan brought him home and tucked him in without taking advantage of him, and all of his valuables seemed to be accounted for. He guesses he could have fared a lot worse after drinking himself into the blackout stage in a bar where he didn’t know anybody. “Thanks, man. I’ll try to get down there and get my truck in the next day or so.”

“Alright, man. It’ll be here when you make it back.”

Daryl thanks him and hangs up, heading back into the kitchen to make himself a sandwich, the only sound in the house the soft patter of rain on the roof as the dark clouds that had been hovering over the Georgia mountains finally began to breach. Daryl eats his sandwich thoughtfully, standing at the window and watching the rain fall onto the ground outside, and he thinks about how nice days like this used to be, when he would stand like this staring out a window and strong arms would wrap around him, pulling him back against a hard chest.

That’ll never happen for him again, though. It’s been five years since he last saw Rick, since the day Rick broke his heart in the light of a Christmas tree while they were both still naked, Daryl draped over Rick’s body, panting with the exertion of their lovemaking. Or what he’d _thought_ was lovemaking. It had turned out to be goodbye sex, and Rick had known that and had still let Daryl say the things he’d said, about love and souls and the future. Asshole.

It didn’t matter that Rick’s eyes had been as wet as Daryl’s in the end, that Rick had looked just as heartbroken as Daryl, because the end result was the same. In some ways, that had made it worse. It had kept hope alive for far too long, hope that Rick would grow a pair and come to his senses. But he hadn’t. And Daryl had moved out here, changed his phone number, tried to forget. He’d talked to Glenn a couple of times since then, and found out that Rick had gone through with the wedding, moved to Kentucky, had a kid. He’d moved on.

And fuck does Daryl wish _he_ could.

He sighs and finishes the rest of his sandwich, then digs in the deep freezer to find some venison. He turns on his radio and searches until he finds a station that isn’t playing Christmas music. It turns out to be hip-hop, which under normal circumstances he wouldn’t particularly enjoy. But hell, at least it’s not fucking “Santa Baby” or some shit. So he cranks it up and sets about throwing ingredients in a Crock Pot for dinner, builds up a nice fire in the fireplace to take the chill out of the air. And he doesn’t think about Rick.

//

Later, Daryl is sitting at his kitchen table eating the stew and flipping through a hunting magazine when he hears a sound that he hasn’t heard since--well, honestly he’s not sure if he’s _ever_ heard the sound of boots that weren’t his clunking over his wooden porch. He just doesn’t get visitors up here. He’s even got a box at the post office so not even the mailman has to make the drive up the mountain, and his nearest neighbors are at least ten miles away and aren’t the visiting type anyway. Which means it’s probably either Mormon missionaries or Martinez coming to bring back his truck.

Daryl sucks some stew off of his fingers and gets up, walks over to the door and pulls it open, a breath already in his lungs ready to form a greeting. But that breath leaks out of him as his eyes focus on the man in front of him, dripping wet from the cold rain and definitely not dressed for December in the fucking mountains.

“Hi,” Rick says, pulling his rain-wet jacket tighter around himself and looking down at the wooden slats on the porch floor instead of up at Daryl. “My car broke down and I need--”

Daryl’s mind jerks back online and he interrupts. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Rick blinks and looks up, his face going even whiter than it already is from the cold. He opens and closes his mouth several times, looking a lot like a particularly stupid trout. “D-Daryl?”

Daryl grits his teeth, willing the nausea in the pit of his stomach to subside. “What are you doing here?” he asks again, weaker this time, quieter.

“I… I didn’t know you lived here. I was just on my way back to Atlanta and my car broke down--”

“On your way back to Atlanta, my ass,” Daryl snaps. “No way in hell is this road on the way to Atlanta, no matter where you were comin’ from.”

Rick raises a rain-slicked hand up to his face, pinches the bridge of his nose. “I was following my GPS. It said this was a shortcut.”

“Well, it ain’t.”

“I can see that now,” Rick murmurs. “Sorry, I just…”

“You just _what_ , Rick?” Daryl growls, taking a menacing step toward the other man. He knows he’s being a tool, knows Rick hasn’t done anything tonight to deserve this, but holy shit does he want to get Rick the hell off his porch and then go find the tequila in his cupboard and get just fucking _plastered_. Again. He can’t take this, not now. Not this time of year. So he crosses his arms, letting his muscles puff up a bit so he looks more intimidating, and glares daggers at Rick like only a true Dixon can.

“I just need a phone,” Rick finishes weakly. “I just… let me use your phone and I’ll get out of your hair.” Daryl just stares at him, his jaw set in stone and his eyes glittering with misplaced rage, and after a moment Rick continues. “I’d use my cell but I… I can’t find the charger and it’s dead.”

Daryl keeps glaring, determined to get Rick _off of his porch_ , but then Rick shivers, clutching his wet jacket to himself, and Daryl sighs and steps back. “Wouldn’t have signal up here anyway. Might as well come in an’ use the phone.” He holds the door open for Rick and stares stonily at the floor while Rick walks into his goddamn cabin.

Daryl closes the door and motions at the phone on the wall by the refrigerator. “Phone’s there. Phone book’s on the table. Call whoever.”

“Daryl--”

“Call a tow truck, Rick,” Daryl spits out, then stomps out of the kitchen and into his bedroom, shutting the door behind himself with just a little more force than necessary.


	3. Chapter 3

Ten minutes pass, and Daryl hasn’t moved from his perch on the side of his bed, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, counting his breaths and determinedly keeping them even while he tries his hardest to ignore the fact that he can hear _Rick Grimes’s voice_ coming from his kitchen. It’s a little rougher now, more life-worn, but fuck if it isn’t still perfect, still exactly what Daryl needs in his life. What he’s been missing for years now, what he thought he’d never get back. Daryl ignores the ache in his chest at that thought, ignores the way his body feels Rick’s pull like gravity from the other room, how easy it would be to swing back into orbit like nothing had happened. Like the last five years hadn’t mattered.

But Rick is still married. Still has a family to get back home to. He’s not _back_ , and he never will be.

There’s a soft knock at Daryl’s bedroom door, and he flinches at the sound. “Daryl?”

“What do you want, Rick?” he manages to say, his voice raspy and fragile, like a fault line under pressure. Earthquake weather, he thinks, and the air in the room suddenly feels tight, constricting. He wants to grab his bow and leave, head out into the woods, disappear for a while. But then again that’s what he’s been doing in this cabin for five years, and Rick still found him. Not that he’d been _hiding_ , not really, but he certainly hadn’t ever expected Rick to show up on his fucking doorstep like this.

“I… um…” There’s a shuffling sound outside the door. “I called all the tow truck places and…”

Daryl pinches hard at the bridge of his nose. “And what?”

“Nobody can come tonight,” Rick says, sounding like he’d much rather be telling Daryl _anything_ else. That the stove is on fire. That the robot war has begun. That there are zombies out on the porch waiting to eat their brains. And frankly, all of those options seem less horrifying to Daryl than the truth: that the entire universe hates him and is out to get him, giving him Rick back for just long enough to remind him of how much it hurt to lose him and then taking him away again.

Well, fuck that. Daryl stands up and stalks over to the door, yanking it open and scowling at Rick. “The fuck you mean, nobody can come?”

Rick meets Daryl’s angry eyes for the barest instant before looking down at the floor again. “I mean… they can get up here in the morning but nobody’s willing to drive up the road in the dark… in the rain…”

“Bullshit,” Daryl bites off, then stomps into the kitchen. He grabs the phone and looks at the phone book, still open to the tow company listings, and dials the first one on the list. No answer. He growls and goes down the list, getting a whole slew of answering machines interspersed with receptionists apologetically saying that they aren’t sending out any more tows except for emergencies, and apparently “I can’t have my ex-boyfriend who broke my heart sleeping under my roof” does not qualify as an emergency.

Daryl slams the phone back onto the receiver and thumps his head against the wall beside it, squeezing his eyes shut and praying for an asteroid to smash through the roof and put him out of his misery.

“I’m sorry,” Rick says quietly from the archway into the living room. “If you just loan me a blanket or something, I can go back out. Sleep in my car.”

Daryl rolls his forehead on the wall so that he can peer over at Rick with one squinty eye. The man is as white as a sheet, shivering hard enough that Daryl’s surprised he can’t hear his teeth rattling, and Daryl suddenly hates the rain because if it had been a nice night, he would have already bundled Rick out the door with a blanket and good riddance. But even though he really, _really_ doesn’t want Rick staying the night, he also doesn’t want the man to die of hypothermia in his car on a mountain road. So he sighs heavily and says, “Don’t be a dumbass. You can stay here for tonight.”

Rick’s face registers so much relief that Daryl feels it tingling in his toes. “Thank you. Can I… could I borrow a towel? Dry off a bit?”

Daryl grunts and pushes away from the wall, turning to face Rick and crossing his arms over his chest. “Under the sink in the bathroom. Down the hall.”

Rick flashes him a grateful smile, and Daryl’s stomach flutters at the sight before he reminds it that Rick is a fucking cowardly heartbreaker and he’s not staying. He’s just going to leave again in the morning and nothing good will come of being _nice_ to him tonight. So Daryl just tucks his fingers into the tight spaces between his biceps and his chest and stares angrily at the floor until Rick disappears down the hall and he hears the bathroom door click shut.

But it’s not like Rick is going to warm up if he’s still wearing his wet clothes. Fuck Daryl’s life.

He trudges back into his bedroom and yanks open his dresser, pulling out his least-favorite pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt that’s seen better days and is now covered in various blotches of paint from home improvement projects. Clothes that he won’t mind burning when Rick is gone to get the smell of the other man out of his house. His hand hovers over an old pair of boxers as he tries to decide whether it’s more awkward to know that Rick is going commando or to know that he’s wearing _Daryl’s underwear_ , and he finally decides that he has too few pairs of boxers to sacrifice one for such a shitty cause.

He slides the drawer closed again and carries the clothes to the bathroom door, lifting his hand and knocking twice, sharply. “Rick? Got you some dry clothes.”

The door eases open just a crack and Rick peers around it, his hair ruffled from toweling. He smiles again and takes the clothes, murmuring a quiet _thank you_ , and Daryl tugs the door back closed and retreats to the living room, tamping down viciously at the flutter of giddy excitement in his stomach at the sight of the man’s smile.

When Rick emerges from the bathroom a few minutes later wearing Daryl’s clothes, Daryl is finishing tucking a sheet into the couch cushions to make a bed. Rick glances at Daryl, then at the open door to the bedroom, then back to Daryl. “Oh,” Rick says, holding his hands up in a _halt_ motion. “I couldn’t. I don’t want to put you out. I’ll take the couch.”

Daryl snorts. “Damn straight you’ll take the couch. Don’t want you gettin’ comfortable here.”

“Daryl--”

“Help yourself to whatever,” Daryl says quickly, gruffly. “Coke’s in the fridge, some beer. Bottled water. Prob’ly some Pop-Tarts in the cabinet. Books on the shelf over there if you need somethin’ to read. Call the tow truck again at first light an’ don’t bother wakin’ me up to say goodbye because I don’t wanna hear it.”

“I’ve missed you.”

Daryl flinches at that, swallows down the pain in his chest. “I’m goin’ to bed. Good night, Rick.”

//

Much later, Daryl is lying in his bed trying not to drown in memories, trying to remind himself why he can’t just open the door and whisper Rick’s name out into the dark living room, why he can’t just lie down on the couch beside him and curl their bodies together like interlocking pieces of a 3-D puzzle, brushing the dust away and sliding home at last.

He thinks of Lori, with her pretty smile and her long hair. Thinks about how _nice_ she was, how bubbly and polite, how Rick would kiss her goodnight and then come home to Daryl, lay his head on Daryl’s chest and just let the guilt drip from him like water down the forest vines.

_It’s not right, what I’m doing to her. Lying to her. Using her._

And Daryl had kissed the top of his head and held him close, murmuring words of encouragement into the darkness. _Tell her, then. You need to tell her._

_I will. Just… not yet._

None of it had been Lori’s fault. She hadn’t known what she was ruining, how perfect everything had been before she came along. Even _after_ she came along, to tell the truth. After all, it wasn’t like Daryl hadn’t known about her, hadn’t been sitting right there while Rick’s parents badgered him into asking her out. He wonders, not for the first time, what would have happened if instead of agreeing to it, Rick had just told his parents right then that he was gay. That he was already in love and didn’t need a girlfriend, no matter how pretty and socially acceptable she was. But he hadn’t, and Daryl had understood. It wasn’t easy being gay in the South, especially when Rick’s parents would never have approved, and so Daryl had just sighed and let Rick date her to appease his family.

And all that had been fine, if a little morally ambiguous since Lori didn’t know about them. But then Rick had gone and ruined everything by caving to his family’s pressure yet again and _marrying his beard_.

Fucking asshole, Daryl thinks. And now here he is, lying in bed while the bane of his existence sleeps peacefully out there on his couch. Probably on his side, his arm curled up under his pillow and his stupid fucking curls fanned out over the pillowcase. Daryl wonders if Rick still talks in his sleep--it had never been real words, more just the suggestions of them, little grunts and murmurs in the patterns of speech if not the actual syllables of it. He wonders if Rick still flutters his eyes open when he wakes up like a goddamn Disney princess, with the same heart-stopping little smile when he focuses on the person next to him.

Which is Lori now, Daryl reminds himself. Lori. Rick’s _wife_. The woman he threw everything good in both their lives away for. So it doesn’t fucking matter anymore how Rick sleeps or how he wakes up, because that part of Rick will never be Daryl’s again.

The raindrops on the roof gradually take on a sharper tone, and Daryl tries to ignore the change until it’s too obvious to pretend he doesn’t notice. It’s not rain anymore. It’s sleet. It’s a goddamn ice storm. He sighs heavily and gets out of bed, walks over to the window to watch the icy slivers cascade down on the ground outside, bouncing cheerfully as if they weren’t ruining everything.

Daryl thumps his forehead against the window and glares up at the sky. “Fuckin’ perfect,” he mutters, then flops back down into bed and prays for a warm, sunny day tomorrow.


	4. Chapter 4

The morning dawns, if one could even call it a dawn with the thick clouds swirling overhead, heavy with some kind of precipitation that Daryl’s sure will be on the wintry side of “wintry mix,” if not full-on snow. The sleet and the freezing rain from last night have crystallized into a fairly thick coat of ice that clings to everything, encasing the entire world in a sheet of glass like each and every twig is on display in a museum.

A really shitty museum, Daryl thinks, and he flops over to face the interior of the room instead of the window, bunching his covers up to his chin and scowling. He tries to go back to sleep, but he’d gone to bed so early the night before so that he could avoid Rick that he just doesn’t have another few hours of sleep in him. So instead he just lies there, his eyes clamped determinedly shut, and lets his mind wander anywhere but here.

Eventually the floorboards creak and then Rick’s voice filters in from the kitchen, quiet and timid, the words too low for Daryl to hear. It goes on for a long time, and Daryl eventually tugs his pillow over his head and tries to ignore it, tries to convince his heart and his other, less noble parts that there’s nothing of note happening here.

Finally, Rick’s voice stops, and there’s silence except for the low groaning of the wooden floor as the other man moves around in the house. It takes Daryl himself about fifteen minutes to drive up the treacherous road to his cabin, so he estimates that a tow truck driven by someone who hasn’t come up this way enough to be familiar with the terrain will take at least twice that long, and with the weather conditions from last night it’s a good bet that there’s a line of cars in ditches waiting for a tow. So they’re looking at probably at _least_ an hour before anyone can make it up here, probably more. And that’s only if, by some Christmas miracle, the ice coating everything in the yard is some sort of freak isolated weather phenomenon and the roads past his driveway are clear and ice-free.

But either way, fuck if Daryl’s getting out of bed and going out there to find out. As long as Rick is in his house, he’s not venturing out of his bedroom. There’s nothing for him out there except pain and anger and the graceful curve of Rick’s neck, the smooth skin there that had always called to Daryl’s lips like a divine decree.

But fuck that, Daryl thinks.

 _He broke my heart,_ he reminds himself yet again. _He broke my heart. He broke my heart._

//

Two hours later, Daryl is greatly regretting all of his life choices--or at least the ones he’s made this morning. Staying in here while Rick putters around in his living room has just served to make everything feel more awkward now that he’s contemplating actually emerging from his cave of grumpiness and going for the Pop-Tarts in the cabinet (and God help Rick if they’re gone), and he’d decided early on that he’d rather just piss out his window than risk seeing Rick’s face on his way to the bathroom, which had turned out to be a poor decision because now he's thirsty and he could have just opened the window and eaten a handful of snow except for that now some of that snow is yellow and he just doesn’t think it's quite time to resort to Bear Grylls tactics to survive the wild.

So he gets dressed. Fully dressed, with hiking boots and everything, because he’s sure as hell not going to do what he usually does and lounge around the house shirtless with flannel pants and a fluffy blanket around his shoulders. He puts on jeans, then takes them back off and goes for baggier, less sexy jeans. A slightly worn but not _too_ comfortable Park Service t-shirt. A long-sleeved flannel shirt over that. Boots laced up tightly and thick warm socks. Hell, if he had a suit of fucking armor, he’d put that on too, just to guard himself that much more from the siren-blue of Rick’s eyes.

And from the delicious scent of gingerbread that hits his nose like a roundhouse kick to the face as soon as he opens his bedroom door.

Rick pokes his head out of the kitchen and gives Daryl a nervous smile. “Good morning. I, um, decided that while I waited for you to get up I might as well make some cookies.”

“Tow truck’ll be here before you finish baking them,” Daryl snaps. He stomps over to the refrigerator and grabs a bottle of water, then downs it in a few large gulps, carefully not looking at Rick for fear that he’ll do something stupid like forgive him.

Rick bites his bottom lip and looks at the floor. “About that…”

“Nobody will come,” Daryl finishes, and it’s not even a question. “Motherfucker.”

“I called everybody. All the tow truck places, all the mechanics, a few guys in the phone book who had names like ‘Butch’ or ‘Clint’ that sounded like they might drive big sturdy trucks that could make it up the mountain.” Rick pauses, and Daryl doesn’t crack a smile even though part of him wants to. After a moment with no response, Rick continues. “Half of them are closed due to the weather and the other half laughed at me for suggesting that they even try getting up here.”

Daryl sighs heavily and looks over at the window, then crosses the room to squint at the icy wonderland outside. There’s at least a quarter of an inch of ice coating everything, maybe more, and the mud of his driveway looks like a fucking ice rink so he can’t even imagine what the road itself looks like. _He_ sure as hell wouldn’t be attempting it if he was a tow truck driver, so he can’t really blame anyone else for not wanting to risk their life for a measly fifty bucks from AAA or some shit.

“I even called the mayor,” Rick says, letting out a little strained chuckle like he’s trying to give Daryl a cue that it’s funny and he should laugh.

Only this is the _least_ funny thing that’s ever happened to Daryl, and so instead of joining in, he turns around and scowls at Rick. “Why the fuck are you making gingerbread cookies?”

Rick blinks, his brow knitting in confusion. “I thought it might make you happy.”

“Well, it don’t,” Daryl snaps, trying not to think of the last batch of gingerbread cookies he’d made, the ones that had sat on the counter until they went stale because Daryl couldn’t bear to look at them after Rick left in the shiny new Camaro his parents had bought him as an engagement gift.

Rick frowns and looks around the room, sliding his hands into his pockets and squaring his shoulders. “You’ve changed.” Daryl snorts, but Rick continues. “You have. This isn’t you. It’s nearly Christmas and you don’t even have a wreath on the door.”

“I hate Christmas,” Daryl grumbles. He stomps over to the refrigerator and grabs a beer bottle, then slams the fridge door shut with enough force to rattle the glasses in the cabinets.

“Oh, Daryl,” Rick says, pity that Daryl doesn’t want or need dripping from his words.

So he whirls around and points at Rick angrily. “Don’t you fucking ‘oh, Daryl’ me. Standing there with your perfect fucking life trying to judge me for mine. Fuck that.”

Rick pulls his hands out of his pockets and puts them on his hips instead. “Look, I know you hate me now. And I deserve it. But we’re stuck here together for at least the next couple of days and I don’t think it would kill you to be _civil_.”

Daryl deflates a little at that, because of course Rick is right. “Sorry,” he grumbles, taking a big swig of his beer and staring stonily at the floor.

Rick sighs softly and then turns and heads over to the door. “I’m going to go get some things out of my car,” he mumbles, then pauses before turning the door knob. “My life isn’t perfect, just so you know. Don’t pretend you know what my life is like, because you don’t.”

Daryl opens his mouth to respond, to challenge him, to point out the fact that it’s _Rick_ who’s the reason that they don’t know each others’ lives on an intimate level anymore, but before he gets enough breath into his lungs to speak, Rick is out the door.


	5. Chapter 5

Daryl takes the partially-baked cookies out of the oven and tips them into the trash can, spends a few minutes putting coffee in the coffeepot and getting it brewing, then puts his hands on the countertop and braces his weight on them, letting his head hang and his hair fall around his face. He knows he needs to let this go. He should be civil to Rick, because there’s no reason _not_ to be civil. Only a man who isn’t over his ex would have this sort of reaction to seeing him again, and Daryl definitely doesn’t want to give Rick the impression that he hasn’t moved on.

And if he wants to seem indifferent, like Rick’s presence or absence has no real effect on his life either way, then he needs to get his shit together and _act_ indifferent. No snapping, no hiding, no yelling. Just going about his day as if the man sleeping on his house is just another stranger whose car broke down outside Daryl’s house.

Daryl can pretend. He’s a grown man, dammit, and a much stronger one than the bright-eyed Christmas-obsessed college student he’d been last time he saw Rick. He can make this work.

Starting with being a decent human being and taking Rick a real coat and some gloves, if he’s going to be standing out on the mountain road trying to chip the ice off his car. Daryl walks over to the window and watches for a moment as Rick yanks at the door handle of his car, almost hard enough to pull the thing off, and then smacks his hand down on the roof of the car with a thump Daryl can hear from the house. Daryl sighs and goes to the little closet where he keeps his winter clothes, pausing to shrug on his own coat before pulling out a second one for Rick. He fishes around until he finds a couple of pairs of gloves and a plastic ice scraper, then trudges out to the road.

“Here,” he mutters, shoving the coat and one pair of gloves at Rick. “You ain’t really dressed for this.”

Rick takes the coat and pulls it on, hugging it tightly to himself for a moment before shoving his hands into the gloves. “I expected to be back in Atlanta by now. Not at a cabin in the mountains in the middle of a blizzard. So I didn’t exactly pack for this sort of weather.”

Daryl snorts, tilting his head back and peering into the gray sky. The ice and sleet had turned to snow overnight and it’s still falling, but softly now, almost like an apology. “This ain’t a blizzard. Just a little ice storm.”

“Either way. I expected to be back in my nice, warm apartment by now. I don’t even think I have any clean clothes in my suitcase. I was planning to do a load of laundry when I got home.”

Daryl grunts in acknowledgment, mostly to keep himself from asking the obvious question. But it doesn’t quite work, and before he can stop himself, the words are already out. “You moved back to Atlanta?”

“Yeah,” Rick says. He takes the ice scraper from Daryl and walks around to the trunk, starts chipping at the ice that has encased his car. “Couple of months ago, I guess. Got a job doing night-time security at one of the bank buildings.” He chips harder for a moment, glancing at Daryl out of the corner of his eye and smiling just a little. “I know, right? You always said I’d end up being a rent-a-cop if I didn’t get better grades. Guess you were right.”

Daryl leans against the car, his hands deep in his pockets as he watches the snow fall and doesn’t look at Rick. “Guess so,” he says quietly, then sighs. “But you had a good job in Kentucky, Glenn said. So why’d you leave?”

Rick stops chipping at the ice for a moment and stares at Daryl, obviously waiting for eye contact. When Daryl refuses to give it, he answers, “I hated Kentucky.”

“Bullshit,” Daryl says, scoffing. “Perfect job, perfect wife, perfect kid. It was everything you ever wanted.”

Rick lets out a hard breath. “Perfect kid, sure. I won’t fight you on that one. Carl’s an awesome little guy. The rest of it, though...” He trails off and shrugs, and Daryl finally looks over at him. “My job was shit. I mean, I loved being a cop, but the precinct was boring as hell and I hated all my fellow officers. Except this one guy, Shane. He was my partner. But one decent guy in a group full of assholes doesn’t exactly make for a perfect job.”

Daryl shoves his hands even deeper in his pockets and pushes at the snow on the ground with the toe of his boot. “An’ Lori?”

“Oh, she’s going to be somebody’s perfect wife, I’m sure. Just not mine,” Rick says, giving the trunk another try before going back at it with the ice scraper. “She divorced me. That’s why I’m back in Atlanta.” Daryl scoffs and looks off into the distance, away from Rick, and after a moment Rick continues. “I was never going to be what she wanted. And all she wanted was someone who wanted _her_. So I guess that makes me a shitty person.”

Daryl snorts. “No argument there.”

Rick works in silence for a long, awkward moment, then stops chipping at the ice and walks over to lean on the frozen car beside Daryl. “I never got a chance to apologize to you,” he says quietly.

“I never wanted to hear it,” Daryl responds, his words clipped and hard, anger seething below the sounds. “Still don’t. Ain’t nothin’ you can say to make what you did better so just save your breath.”

Rick turns, still leaning on the car but facing Daryl now. “I shouldn’t have done that to you. I shouldn’t have--”

“Rick, I am so fuckin’ serious when I say I don’t want to hear it,” Daryl interrupts, looking back at Rick with hard, glittering eyes.

Rick frowns. “Well, maybe I need to say it.”

“That’s between you an’ your fuckin’ shrink, man. Don’t drag me into your mental breakdown. I ain’t your AA group that you gotta talk it out with.” Daryl pushes away from the icy vehicle. “Get your shit out of your damn car and come back inside before you freeze. And don’t fucking talk to me. I honestly don’t give a shit what you have to say an’ so it’s best if you just don’t say one goddamn word to me for the rest of the time you’re stuck here.” He takes a few steps toward the house before Rick calls out to him.

“Don’t do this, Daryl. Don’t walk away.”

Daryl stops in his tracks, his jaw working back and forth, then slowly turns around. “You’re seriously going to talk to _me_ about walking away?”

Rick frowns deeply, the beginnings of his own anger catching in his eyes. “I fucked up, okay? I fucked up and I know I did. I’ve had to live with that every day for the last five years. Knowing that I hurt you. Knowing that I’m the reason why you’re not happy.”

Daryl points a finger at Rick in warning. “You shut the hell up, Rick. Right now.”

“Look at you,” Rick says, waving his hand at Daryl and then at the cabin. “Living up here all by yourself. Cut off from everybody and everything. Hiding in the woods instead of having a real life. And that’s all on me.”

“It ain’t on you,” Daryl starts, an accusation and not a platitude, but Rick barrels over him before he can explain.

“And now I have to go back to Atlanta and know that I did this to you,” Rick spits out. “That you’re like this because of what I did to you.”

Daryl lets out a furious gasp of disbelief. “Are you fuckin’ kidding me right now?”

Rick sets his jaw and puts his hands on his hips. “This isn’t what you wanted for yourself. And this is all my fault.”

“Rick, I swear to fuckin’ God--”

“I shouldn’t have--”

“You broke my heart, but you didn’t break _me_ , Rick,” Daryl yells, gesturing angrily at Rick and then pounding his hand against his own chest. “I made a life here. A good life. Without you. I finished my degree and I got a good job that I like, and I live up here in the mountains all by myself and maybe that seems shitty to you. Maybe it seems pathetic. Maybe you look at what I have here and you fuckin’ pity me, and that’s fine. I don’t give a _shit_ what you think. Because you could have destroyed me an’ I didn’t let you. So fuck you, Rick. You don’t get to say one single goddamn thing about my life because you decided a long time ago that you didn’t want to be part of it.”

“I never said I didn’t want to be part of your life,” Rick says back, his voice echoing off the ice around them. “You didn’t give me a chance to explain.”

“Explain _what_ , Rick? Did you propose to Lori right after you fucked me in our living room or didn’t you?”

“I did, but--”

“Then what the _fuck_ were you going to say to make that anything other than what it was?”

Rick lets out a hard, frustrated breath. “I wasn’t going to marry her. I was just trying to buy some time to convince my parents that--”

“Bullshit,” Daryl snaps. “Bull-fucking-shit, Rick. You forget how many times I bought that fucking excuse before? ‘Oh, Daryl, I’m not going to _date_ her, I’m just going to meet her so my parents get off our case.’ And then ‘oh, Daryl, I’m just _pretending_ to date her while I ease my folks into being okay with me being gay.’ And then ‘oh, Daryl, my parents are taking me and Lori with them to Cancun but it’s not like that, I’m not going to touch her, I’m just playing along while I talk to them about how awesome _you_ are.’ And I ate all that up because you had _me_ convinced that you were telling the truth, that you really were in love with me and just trying to find the right time to tell them. But I had to draw the line somewhere and I don’t know, Rick, I just thought that maybe you actually getting _engaged_ to her was a pretty fucking good place to draw that line.”

“I _was_ in love with you,” Rick says, breathless and desperate. “I still--”

“Rick, I swear to God if you say what I think you’re about to say, I’ll kill you with my bare hands and tell the cops it was a mountain lion.”

Rick hooks his thumbs in his coat pockets and looks at the ground. “It’s true, though. I never stopped.”

Silence falls between them, colder than the ice coating the trees. Daryl bites his lip and looks away again, farther up the mountain. “That’s so fucking unfair, man,” he murmurs after an eternity of moments.

“Look at all this, Daryl,” Rick says, very softly. “I’m here, stuck at your cabin in the middle of an ice storm that wasn’t supposed to happen. My car shouldn’t have broken down, but it did. I took a wrong turn that just happened to bring me to your doorstep instead of any other house in Georgia. And nobody can come up here and get me until after Christmas. You can’t look at this situation and tell me that it doesn’t _mean_ something.”

Daryl kicks viciously at a snow-covered rock, watching as it skitters over the ice on the road. “Means you need to sue the shit out of your GPS company. That’s all it means.”

“You used to believe in Christmas miracles,” Rick points out.

Daryl rolls his eyes and lets a humorless laugh slide from his lungs. “I used to believe in a lot of things,” he says, then sighs. “Coffee’s on. Finish gettin’ your stuff and then help yourself. I’m goin’ back to bed.”

“Daryl--”

“Don’t,” Daryl says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Just… don’t.”

“Alright,” Rick breathes, his shoulders sagging in defeat, and Daryl turns and trudges back to the house.


	6. Chapter 6

 Hours later, Daryl is lying on his bed with his arm draped over his eyes when Rick taps on the door.

“I made lunch,” Rick calls through the wood. “I know you’re pissed but you have to eat something.”

Daryl groans and rolls over onto his side, but his stomach gives an angry little growl at the movement and he sighs. “Just slide a plate under the door.”

There’s a long pause, followed by a dull thud that can only be Rick’s head smacking into the door. “No. Either you stop acting like a sulky teenager and come out and get your food, or you’re just going to have to see how long you can survive on the tube of Certs you have in your back pocket. Up to you.”

Daryl flops his arm away from his face and props himself up on his elbows, glaring at the door as if it’s Rick himself. “Told you not to talk to me anymore,” he calls out, frowning even harder as he feels the half-roll of Certs that are, in fact, in his back pocket dig into his ass cheek, because fuck Rick for knowing him so well even after all this time.

“Just come out and have lunch,” Rick says, then there’s nothing but the sound of Rick’s shoes on the hardwood floors as he walks away, footsteps heavy as he goes.

Daryl sits up all the way and sighs, rubbing his eyes hard in frustration, then slowly swings his legs off the bed and stands up. He takes several deep, steadying breaths, mentally preparing himself for seeing Rick in his kitchen again, then sighs again and walks out into the main part of the cabin and through the living room into the kitchen. Rick has already set out two plates and two bottles of beer and he’s busy spooning spaghetti sauce over the noodles on each plate. Daryl’s stomach stages a mutiny and growls, and Rick turns around and gives Daryl a very small smile.

“I thought maybe you’d still like my spaghetti,” he says, putting the pot of sauce down on a trivet in the middle of the table. “I mean, you always said I made the best--”

“Let’s make a rule not to talk about what I used to like,” Daryl snaps, then stomps over to the table and sits down. “Don’t like none of that shit anymore.”

Rick slowly slides into his own chair and picks up his fork, staring at the spaghetti in silence for a moment. “You really have changed.”

Daryl sighs and stabs a meatball, bringing it up to his mouth and chewing with vicious chomps of his teeth. “Had to,” he says. “World turned out to be different than I thought it was. So I got different too. Survival strategy.”

“I’m sorry,” Rick says quietly. “I never meant for it to be like this.”

Daryl snorts and eats another mouthful of spaghetti, deliberately letting noodles hang out of his mouth while he chews in the hopes that the gross display would turn Rick off of conversation.

It doesn’t. “I just want you to know that,” he continues. “I fully admit that I fucked up both of our lives because I was a coward. But I want you to know that... that it was just that. Me being a coward. Not me deliberately trying to hurt you. Not me not loving you. Because god, Daryl, I did. More than anything in the world.”

“Not more than your daddy’s money,” Daryl grumbles, shoving another forkful of food in his mouth.

Rick sighs heavily and puts his fork back down on his plate. “It wasn’t like that.”

“Well, you’re apparently not going to fucking drop the subject until I ask, so go ahead, Rick. Tell me what it was like.” Daryl throws his own fork down and leans back in his chair, glaring daggers at Rick. “Tell me how much you sold me out for.”

“I didn’t sell you out--”

“Bullshit,” Daryl snaps. “Of course you did. How much was it?”

Rick’s elbows hit the table and he buries his face in his hands. “Don’t do this.”

Daryl scoffs loudly and crosses his arms over his chest. “No, you’re the one who wanted to have this conversation. So go ahead. Tell me what I was worth to you. Tell me how many zeroes it took to make you drop me like a bad habit.”

“It wasn’t about the money,” Rick says, his voice muffled by the hands covering his mouth.

“You’re gonna sit there and tell me there wasn’t any money involved,” Daryl challenges, raising an eyebrow.

“I didn’t intend to marry her, Daryl,” Rick says, finally dropping his hands away from his face and looking at Daryl with eyes that are red-rimmed but still dry. “I... I thought if I could just buy us time. Six more months, tops. Then I could finish school and they wouldn’t be able to hold that over my head anymore. And then I’d break it off with Lori and there wouldn’t be shit they could do to me because I’d have my degree and I’d have _you_ and nothing they could do would matter anymore.”

Daryl scoffs again, but with less venom this time. He looks off into an empty corner of the room and tightens his arms over his chest. “And you just expected me to believe that.”

“I expected you to trust me,” Rick says, very quietly.

“You married her, though,” Daryl points out. “All this talk about what you intended to do, and you married her anyway.”

“You were gone,” Rick says, his voice rising in volume a bit. “You were gone and you wouldn’t answer my phone calls. You wouldn’t let me explain. You just... ran off. Stopped speaking to me. I didn’t know where the hell you were, Daryl. I called you so many times. I sat outside your classes waiting to see if you’d walk by and I could make you talk to me. I even went to the goddamn prison and tried to make Merle tell me where you were. But I got nothing. Radio silence. And so what the fuck was I supposed to do? You were gone and you wanted nothing to do with me and so yeah, Daryl. I married her. I liked her. I liked her and she liked me and my parents approved and they offered to buy us a fucking house so that we wouldn’t have to worry about saving up for that. They bought us both cars and paid for our honeymoon and set up a trust fund for whenever we had a kid, so now Carl has ten million fucking dollars he’s going to get when he turns twenty-one, and so can you really sit there and blame me for taking all of that from them? Marrying her got me all that and Daryl, I still would have turned it down. I would have given all that up for you in a fucking heartbeat, but you weren’t there.” He takes a deep breath and lets it out, slow and shaking. “You weren’t there.”

“How could I believe you,” Daryl says softly after several seconds have passed, “when they’d always changed your mind before?”

Rick shrugs helplessly. “You probably shouldn’t have believed me. I was such a fucking _coward_ , Daryl. So afraid of what my parents would do to me. To _us_. And I know now how stupid that was. The only good thing that came of my dumb fear was Carl, and trust me, he’s the only reason I’m not devoting my life to building a time machine so I could fix all this.”

“And Lori?” Daryl asks, running his foot absently on the floor and not looking at Rick.

“She knew.” Rick puts a hand on the table and trails his fingers over the grooves in the wood. “Not about you in particular, but she knew I didn’t love her. And she didn’t love me, either. At least... not like it should have been. She wanted the house and the cars and the honeymoon too. And it was good for her, for a while. But it was never going to be what you and I could have had.”

“I hate her,” Daryl says quietly, more to himself than Rick. “I shouldn’t hate her because it’s not her fault. She didn’t know. But holy _fuck_ do I hate her anyway.”

Rick sighs and looks up at the ceiling. “She was good to me while it lasted. And she’s a wonderful mother. She just wasn’t the love of my life. She never could have been.”

Daryl laughs a quiet, utterly humorless laugh. “Neither was I.”

“Why do you say that?” Rick practically whispers. “Daryl, you _were_. You still are.”

“I’m not,” Daryl answers. He reaches a hand up and runs it through his own hair, dragging his fingers slowly through the strands. “We ain’t _together_ anymore, Rick. ‘f I was the love of your life, you wouldn’t have been able to let me go.”

Rick picks at the table some more, prying a tiny splinter of wood up and flicking it off into the kitchen. “You said I was yours.”

“Yeah, well, I said a lot of things while you were fucking me beside the goddamn Christmas tree an’ tellin’ me how beautiful I was,” Daryl snaps back. “Especially since--” He cuts off and bites down on the inside of his cheek, looks away with angry eyes.

The seconds tick by slowly, and finally Rick murmurs, “Especially since what, Daryl?”

“Nothing. Forget it.” Daryl stands up and shoves his hands in his pockets. “I hate Lori even though I shouldn’t. But I hate _you_ more. I hate you for what you did, Rick. And I don’t know if I can ever forgive you.”

“Please, Daryl--”

“No,” Daryl interrupts, with more sadness than anger now. “It’s too late for us, Rick. Don’t dwell on shit you can’t change.”

Rick shakes his head and stands up too. “I never stopped loving you. Never. And I won’t. I’ll go to my grave loving you.”

Daryl snorts. “I don’t know what you expect me to say to that.”

“That you love me too?” Rick suggests, his eyes intensely blue and sharp like a broken heart.

“I don’t,” Daryl insists. “I can’t let myself do that again, Rick. Not again.”

Rick takes a step toward him and Daryl flinches backwards. “Then just… spend some time with me. Until the tow truck can get here, let’s just… be together. Even just as friends. I don’t care, I just want to hear your voice for a little longer before you throw me out.”

Daryl sighs heavily. He can’t just keep hiding in his room, after all, and even though he hates Christmas now, cowering in one tiny corner of his house while his ex has the run of the rest of it doesn’t sound like a good way to spend his holiday break. “I’ll _think_ about it if you swear you won’t keep talking about love and shit.”

Rick’s eyes light up, igniting like stars in a nebula, and Daryl’s heart gives a little twinge of joy at the sight. _He broke my heart_ , he tells the mutinous organ, and then mutters “gonna go take a shower” to Rick as his heart answers _but he still loves you_.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Michelle_A_Emerlind, TWDObsessive, s0urw0lf, MaroonCamaro, Sorran, and AprilValentine (I think I got you all... forgive me if I forgot someone!) for ganging up on me and talking me through a fic-related meltdown last night. Collectively, they saved Christmas!

Daryl spends a long time in the shower, head bowed as the water just runs down his back and Rick’s voice winds rapidly through his mind: _I never stopped loving you_ and _You used to believe in Christmas miracles_ and then words from even farther back: _I’ll never let you go_.

But he had. And no matter what his reasons were, no matter what Daryl had done or hadn’t done, no matter what explanations he could have given… in the end, Rick hadn’t been strong enough to stand up to his parents for Daryl. And fuck, they’d been _so close_. So close to graduation, so close to starting their lives together--

Daryl sighs heavily, finally tilting his head back into the water as he grabs a bottle of shampoo and lathers it into his hair, trying not to think about how Rick used to do this for him when he was stressed, how Rick would stand in the shower with him and sing dumb pop songs while he made mohawks in Daryl’s sudsy hair just to get him to crack a smile. And god, it had always _worked_ , too, no matter how hard Daryl had fought to stay serious about it.

God, he misses that. He misses _Rick_. Misses the sound of laughter in the house, the smell of Rick’s cologne on the sheets, the little love notes with terrible pick-up lines he’d find in his wallet on random days. Misses lazy Saturdays curled up on the couch watching dumb shit like _Swamp People_ or _Ice Road Truckers_ or _Dancing With the Stars_. Misses nights lying close, Rick’s back against Daryl’s chest and their fingers tangled together over Rick’s stomach, whispering to each other about the future, the house they’d buy, the jobs they’d have, what they’d name their first dog, anything and everything about life and love and a future full of possibility.

And now Rick is back, standing in Daryl’s living room, saying the words Daryl’s wanted to hear for years, ever since Daryl moved out of their apartment without leaving a forwarding address or even so much as a goodbye note. And Rick and Lori are divorced, and Rick is back in Georgia, and so part of Daryl’s treacherous heart just _longs_ to let go of everything, to let himself fall back in a love he never really fell out of.

But he can’t, he reminds that part of his heart. Because the point of the matter is that Rick knew he was going to propose to Lori long before he actually did it and he never mentioned it to Daryl. Never once took the time, over the weeks before Christmas, to just explain what was going on, what he intended. And Daryl still would have been upset, would have yelled at him, maybe would have even thrown him out for a few days, but it wouldn’t have felt like so much of a betrayal if Rick had just _told_ him at some point before when he had actually come clean approximately half an hour before he left the house to go propose to Lori.

He takes a deep breath and quickly finishes washing and rinsing, then steps out of the shower and dries off slowly, listening to the sounds from outside the bathroom as Rick bustles around opening cabinets and clinking glasses, and for fuck’s sake he can even hear him singing, his voice low but joyful in the quiet house, _in the meadow we can build a snowman_ …

Daryl swallows down the excruciating ball of hopeless hope in his throat and pulls on the clothes he’s brought in with him, still not his usual loungewear but closer, with comfortable worn Levi’s and an old Pixies t-shirt. He gives his hair one last toweling before opening the door and stepping out into the house in a cloud of steam.

Rick is sitting on the couch with a book, reading and drinking something that looks suspiciously like the Christmas drinks that Martinez had been serving at the bar the night Daryl met the old man who’d claimed he was Santa. There’s another glass on the lamp table at Daryl’s end of the couch, amber-colored liquid with cinnamon-sugar on the rim of the glass and a candy cane stuck in like a mixing stick. Rick looks up at Daryl and it’s like sunrise after an ice storm, glittering and bright and completely fucking transformative.

Daryl frowns and walks over to flop down on his favorite spot on the couch. He picks up the drink, wondering where the hell Rick found candy canes to stick in the glasses, then swirls the liquid around a bit while gathering his thoughts to speak.

“This book’s pretty good,” Rick says after a moment. “Have you read--”

“I got somethin’ to say,” Daryl interrupts. “I just…” He trails off, eyes his drink, slams half of it in one giant gulp. It’s strong, stronger than he’d expected, but that’s just as well. “It’s somethin’ I never told you but I’ve always wanted to tell you that… that I knew. Or at least, I thought I knew.” He shakes his head and lets out a frustrated breath through his nostrils. “Shit, I don’t even know if I can say it.”

“I’ll listen to anything. I’m just glad you’re talking to me.”

Daryl pinches the bridge of his nose with his free hand, squeezing his eyes shut. “I’m just gonna fuckin’ say it and don’t interrupt me because I gotta get it out.”

Rick slowly puts down the book and nods. “Alright.”

“Christmas Eve,” Daryl says, then takes a small sip and puts the glass down on a coaster. “I got up early to make breakfast. You were still sleeping an’ I wanted to wake you up right, bring you candy cane muffins an’ suck you off nice and slow, like you used to like. An’ so I put the muffins in the oven, decided to go out on the balcony for a smoke while they baked.” Rick just sits there quietly, watching Daryl as he speaks, and after a second, Daryl leans his head back so it rests on the back of the couch and continues. “Couldn’t find my lighter, so I went to get yours from your jacket pocket.”

There’s a sharp intake of breath from Rick’s side of the couch. “Oh, Daryl--”

Daryl keeps speaking over him. “I didn’t open the box. Thought it was for me, wanted to be surprised.” He bites down on the inside of his bottom lip for a moment, centering himself, then shrugs. “Ain’t ever been able to decide whether it would have been worse to just open it an’ be done with it then or if it was better to wait like I did an’ find out later that it wasn’t mine.”

“Daryl--”

“Ain’t nothin’ you can _say_ , Rick,” Daryl bites, out, breathless with both pain and fury at the memory, at the shame he’d felt when Rick had told him. He turns his head and glares. “‘Course you wouldn’t never have proposed to me. I was a fuckin’ dumbass for thinking otherwise.”

“Daryl, listen--”

“I don’t want to fuckin’ hear your excuses, Rick--”

“Daryl _, shut the fuck up and listen_.” Daryl narrows his eyes but closes his mouth, and Rick takes a deep breath. “You want to know what the ring in that box looked like? You’ve probably been spending all these years picturing some huge fucking rock with a princess cut and more carats than you can count on both your hands and yeah, that’s what my parents bought for me to give Lori. But that wasn’t what was in that box.”

Daryl crosses his arms over his chest and stares angrily off into the corner of the room, desperately trying to tamp down on whatever emotion he feels blooming in his chest. “What, then?” he grunts out, more because he can’t stop himself than because he actually wants to know.

“It was a titanium band, colored like gunmetal, with an inlaid ring of fossilized wood,” Rick says quietly. “Engraved on the inside with our names. I saw it months before and I had to pay for it in installments because I wasn’t going to use my dad’s money to buy you a ring. You teased me all those months for being a cheapskate and putting all my shitty little paychecks in savings, but that’s why I was doing it. For you. Because you deserved something beautiful. Something that would show you how much I loved you.”

Daryl pushes himself up from the couch and stands there for a moment, his hands flying up to his hair, the heels of his palms pressing into his temples as his heart pounds in his chest.

“So whatever else you think of me, don’t ever say I didn’t love you. Don’t say that.” Rick folds his hands in his lap and stares at them. “When I went over to my parents’ on Christmas morning… I told my mother. Showed her the ring and said I was going to ask you to marry me, that we were going to run off to Massachusetts or somewhere it would be legal and just _do_ it. And she was so _angry_ , just like I knew she would be. Started yelling about how they weren’t going to pay for my last semester of school, how they were going to break the lease on our apartment and force me to move back home, throw you out on the streets. And I didn’t know anything about financial aid, didn’t think I could get any since my parents were rich, and I was afraid, because I knew they’d do it. And then neither of us would have a place to live and we’d both have to drop out of school to pay the bills they’d been paying for us, and…” He trails off, lowers his voice to almost a whisper. “I’d handed her the ring while I was telling her about you and she wouldn’t give it back. I don’t know what she did with it. She couldn’t have returned it because it was engraved so I think she must have pawned it off later, but either way I never saw it again. And she dragged me to the store and picked out a ring for me to give Lori and I was so fucking scared that I just let her do it.”

“Motherfucker,” Daryl mutters, then walks in a tight circle, tugging at his hair as he moves and trying to just _process_. He ends up over near the wall and he stops there, puts his forehead against it and concentrates on breathing.

“I didn’t want to tell you about the ring I got for you,” Rick says softly. “I thought… I thought it would make it worse, to know. But whatever else you think of me, whatever else you hate me for that I totally deserve, just… know that when I pictured getting married, it was always to you.”

Daryl takes a deep breath and releases it slowly, counting the seconds as the air leaves his lungs. He hears the couch creak as Rick stands and the soft, careful footsteps as he crosses the room, but he’d know Rick was close to him even if he hadn’t heard the sounds because the air is thick, charged with electricity and potential, and when Rick’s hand touches the skin of Daryl’s arm it’s like a bullet ripping through his flesh, hot and painful and shattering.

God, it’s been so long since anyone has touched him like this. His skin jumps with desire, his body falling back into its old patterns of arching toward Rick’s touch as if it’s the only warmth left in a frozen world, and even if this isn’t real, even if Rick will be gone again as soon as the roads are clear and even if Rick betrays him again the next time he talks to his parents, well… why shouldn’t he have this? Why shouldn’t he let himself have this one more moment to feel wanted, to feel beautiful, to feel _loved_?

“Daryl,” Rick says.

“Fuck me,” Daryl responds, arching backward so that his shoulders press into Rick’s chest. “Jesus, just… fuck me.”


	8. Chapter 8

Rick’s arms slide around Daryl, pulling him back fully against his chest, and Daryl shivers and tilts his head back to rest it on Rick’s shoulder, exposing his neck as he does. It feels like coming home and Daryl hates that, hates his body for singing against Rick’s, hates his heart for trying so damn hard to convince his brain that this is real. Hates his brain for almost, _almost_ believing it.

Rick’s lips brush across the spot where Daryl’s neck curves into his wide shoulders. “I’ve missed you,” he murmurs, letting his lips move on Daryl’s skin as he speaks. “Every fucking day, I’ve missed you.”

“ _Rick_ ,” Daryl breathes, and he’s not sure if he’s warning or begging but either way the name feels good on his tongue, and he hates that too. But god, he wants this so much, wants Rick’s hands on his skin and Rick’s cock deep inside him, and so he pushes aside that part of his mind that’s warning him that this is a bad idea and lets himself relax into Rick’s arms.

“Missed having you in my arms like this,” Rick continues, splaying his hands across Daryl’s abdominal muscles and chest and kissing up the column of Daryl’s neck. “Missed hearing you say my name. Missed--”

“Stop talking,” Daryl whispers, pulling back and turning himself in Rick’s arms so they’re facing each other. “Don’t want to talk no more. Just want you in me.”

Rick smiles like a symphony and leans forward, but Daryl ducks his head and drags his lips over Rick’s stubbled throat, drawing a little gasp from him before Daryl takes a step back and grabs Rick’s hand to lead him to the bedroom.

They make it there in a flurry of discarded clothing, Daryl whipping his own garments off as quickly as he can so that he won’t talk himself out of it, because this is probably going to be the last time he ever gets to feel this. One more round of goodbye sex, five years too late. But at least this time he knows it’s the last. At least this time he can take the physical pleasure without pouring his heart into it too. At least this time he won’t say stupid, naive things about forever when all he’s got is today.

He takes a deep breath and turns around to face Rick, letting his eyes run over the other man’s body, from the deep V of his collarbone down over his strong, broad chest and down until his eyes snag on something new--a faded scar the size of Daryl’s palm, spread over Rick’s side like a supernova. Daryl sucks in a surprised breath and steps forward, eyes locked on the scar and fingers outstretched to trail over it. “Rick?” he whispers.

“Shot,” Rick says, looking down at Daryl’s fingers as his muscles jump under their touch.

“It looks… bad.” Daryl flicks his eyes up to Rick’s, doing his best to ignore the sick feeling of misplaced fear, the little whisper from his traitorous heart that says _you could have lost him_. “Was it bad?”

Rick shrugs. “Hazard of the job,” he says quietly, then reaches down to grab Daryl’s hand, pulling it away from the scar and up to his lips. “I want to make love to you. Will you let me do that?” He kisses the tips of Daryl’s fingers, his hot blue gaze burning into Daryl’s eyes.

And for one endless second, Daryl considers it. Considers just giving in, throwing the past five years into the river and letting the current take it somewhere far away where it won’t matter anymore. Considers closing his eyes and allowing himself to fall again, consequences be damned. And god, it would be so easy to do that, here with the man who’s still the love of his life even after everything that’s happened, and Daryl wants to, he wants to, he _wants to_.

But nothing’s changed. Rick is divorced now and so he’s available again, and he says he loves Daryl and Daryl, god help him, believes that’s true. But Rick has said that before, so many times in so many places under so many circumstances, and in the end he’d sold Daryl out anyway. Because of fear, because of money, because of shame--it doesn’t matter why, and Daryl believes that Rick regrets it _now_ , but what happens the next time Rick’s parents offer him another house, another car, another bump in his inheritance? _Money talks_ , Daryl thinks, and he wants to ask Rick that question, wants to hear Rick promise that he won’t ever do that again.

But he’s said that before, too.

And so Daryl twists his hand so that his fingers lace with Rick’s and he gives him a tug toward the bed. “Don’t want it like that,” he says, opening the drawer on his nightstand and pulling out a woefully neglected bottle of lube. He crawls onto the bed and gets on his hands and knees, then starts working quickly on opening himself up.

“How do you want it?” Rick asks, climbing onto the bed and sitting back on his knees, running his hands over Daryl’s lower back, fingers trailing like fire over Daryl’s skin, and Daryl shivers and slips a second finger into himself, hissing softly at the intrusion.

“Hard,” he growls out, pumping in and out of himself to demonstrate. “Fast. Deep as you can get.” He pulls his fingers out and lowers his top half down on his elbows, bracing his weight on his forearms with his ass in the air, then squeezes his eyes shut and takes a deep breath. “‘M ready. Do it.”

Rick’s hands slide down to Daryl’s hips and Daryl bites down on his bottom lip, steeling himself for a hard first thrust, for being taken with all the power Rick has within him. For a moment, he feels Rick’s hard cock slide along the crevice of his ass, rubbing against his skin but not pushing in, and then it’s gone. Daryl lets out the breath he’d been holding in a huff. “What’s wrong?”

“Turn over,” Rick murmurs. “I want to see you.”

Daryl sighs and looks down under his own body at his own cock, hanging listlessly between his legs. To call it half-hard would be generous, and Rick doesn’t need to see that, doesn’t need to know that he’s just too fucking _sad_ to get it up. And besides, if he turns over then Rick will try to kiss him and Daryl will do something monumentally stupid like _let_ him. And that would be it, game over, Daryl ripping his own heart out again and handing it to Rick to destroy one more time, and Daryl’s just not sure he can come back from that again.

So he shakes his head and closes his eyes. “Nah. Rather do it like this.”

“But--”

“Shut up,” Daryl snaps, waggling his ass in what he hopes comes across as a seductive manner. “Just fuck me, okay? Do it. Now.” He takes another deep breath. “Just fuck me until I forget.”

There’s a long pause, then the bed creaks as Rick sits back away from Daryl. “No.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Daryl insists. “Come on. You want it. Take it.”

“Daryl, I’m not going to fuck you until you forget,” Rick tells him, and Daryl can hear the soft scratching of his stubble as Rick rubs a hand over his own face. “I want to fuck you because you _remember_. Because you want to be with me again.”

Daryl sighs heavily and rolls over onto his back, draping his arm over his eyes. “I can’t do this.”

The bed shifts as Rick lays down beside him, presumably on his own back as well. “Can’t do what?” he asks quietly.

“Any of it. Forgive you, for one thing,” Daryl grumbles, his voice low and tired, then sighs again and pulls his arm off of his eyes but doesn’t open them. “Actually, that’s not true. You apologized and I do forgive you. I get why you did it and I believe that you wish you hadn’t.” He pauses, bites his lip, speaks again. “But I can’t trust you not to do it again. And god, Rick, I wish I could. I wish I could just take what you’re offerin’ and not worry about the future. But I can’t do that.”

The room is silent for a long time, the only noise the chirping of a flock of chickadees looking for frosted berries in the snow outside. “I don’t know what to say,” Rick says after centuries of silence. “I want to tell you that it’ll be different this time, and it will. But I don’t know how to convince you that it’s true.”

Daryl opens his eyes and turns his head to squint over at Rick, who’s staring at the ceiling with his hands folded on his stomach. “Don’t know if you _can_.”

Rick smiles sadly and then slowly rolls over onto his side, tucking his arm under his pillow and gazing at Daryl with heartbreaking sincerity. “I’d like a chance to try, at least.”

Daryl doesn’t respond right away, and after a few seconds of watching the way Rick is looking at him, he decides that it doesn’t really need a response. So he turns his head back to look at the ceiling and says, “Tell me about Carl.”

Rick smiles brightly enough that Daryl can see it even in his peripheral vision. “He’s a great little guy. Three-and-a-half now. He’s got my eyes and he’s so smart, Daryl. Loves the outdoors. You’ll like him.” He pauses and takes a long, slow breath. “He knows I’m gay, by the way. Doesn’t understand what that really _means_ yet, but I told him. Wanted him to grow up thinking it was normal.”

Daryl blinks, then lets out a noncommittal grunt and shifts around until he can pull the blanket up over himself. “Lori okay with that?”

“She wasn’t sure at first, but I convinced her that it was better if he knew,” Rick says. “I tried dating for a while after Lori and I broke up. Went out on a few dates. But nobody felt right. I just kept comparing them to you and that wasn’t fair to any of them.” He follows Daryl’s example and slides himself under the covers, snuggling in like he belongs there. “How about you? Dated anyone?”

“Nah.” Daryl lifts his arms and folds his hands behind his head. “Just been workin’. Not much of a social life. But that’s fine. I wasn’t ever much of a people person anyway.”

“Where do you work?” Rick asks, scooting a little closer to Daryl.

Daryl notices, but chooses not to respond to the motion. After all, it’s not like they’re not naked in bed together anyway, so what’s a few more centimeters of proximity? “Park Service. I like it a lot, man. Kind of my dream job. So I’m happy.”

“Are you a ranger, then?”

“Nah, conservation biologist,” Daryl says. “I tromp through the woods collecting samples and shit. Run data analysis on what species we have and how the populations are doin’, that sort of thing.”

Rick chuckles softly, and the sound filters through Daryl’s ears and settles somewhere in his stomach, warm and familiar. “Sounds perfect for you. Job in the outdoors, working in nature, cabin in the mountains. You have the life you wanted.”

“Wanted you in it, though,” Daryl mutters, too emotionally exhausted to hold the words in. “People think I’m lonely up here all by myself, and they’re right. But I ain’t lonely for people. I’m lonely for _you_. Always have been.” Rick opens his mouth to respond, but Daryl talks over him. “But that don’t change anything. What I want and what’s best ain’t never been the same thing.”

Rick rolls back over onto his back and stares at the ceiling too. “Do you still love me?” he asks, very softly, barely a whisper in the quiet room.

Daryl lets out a long breath. “Yeah,” he says at last. “But like I said, it don’t change anything.”

“Gives me hope, though,” Rick murmurs.

Daryl chuckles at that. “Hope’s a dangerous thing, man. But I guess it ain’t the worst thing in the world.” He sits up, swinging his legs off the side of the bed and going to pick up his discarded clothes.

“Where are you going?” Rick asks, sitting up too and watching Daryl move around the room.

“Kitchen,” Daryl says, then offers Rick a very small smile. “Let’s go make some Christmas cookies.”


	9. Chapter 9

They find everything they need for Christmas cookies in Daryl’s kitchen, including an unopened tub of white frosting that Daryl only vaguely remembers buying and two jars of red and green sugar sprinkles that he definitely doesn’t remember at _all_. And the house smells like fucking Christmas again, all pine needles and cinnamon and nutmeg even though none of that makes any sense. But this time instead of coating the house with bug spray to get the smell out, Daryl just breathes it in, the scent of Christmas mixed with Rick as it always should have been, and it feels _right_.

“So what’s Merle up to these days?” Rick asks as he carefully cuts a star shape out of the cookie dough and puts it next to a row of trees and snowmen and something that Daryl had claimed was a reindeer even though it looked nothing like one.

Daryl snorts and shakes his hair back out of his eyes. “Moved to Tuscaloosa with some waitress chick. Says he’s on the straight and narrow now. We’ll see how long that lasts.”

“Well, you never know.” Rick smiles, sending a ray of warmth through Daryl’s chest. “Maybe this time he’ll stay clean.”

“First time for everything, I guess,” Daryl says. He puts one more ‘snowflake’ cookie on the sheet and then turns around, leaning his back against the counter while Rick slides the pan into the oven. “Glenn’s gettin’ married. Did you know that?”

“No,” Rick says, raising his eyebrows. “To who?”

“Some girl he met. I don’t know. Name’s Maggie but I haven’t met her.” Daryl scoffs and looks down at the floor, crossing his arms protectively over his chest. “Ain’t like I go to Atlanta much these days.”

Rick sets a timer and then angles his body toward Daryl, his hip pressed into the countertop. “You going to the wedding?”

“Don’t know,” Daryl mumbles. “Maybe. Probably.”

“You should go,” Rick tells him. “Hopefully I’ll get an invitation too. Or I could be your plus one.”

Daryl rolls his eyes and snorts again. “Ain’t been to a wedding in years. Think the last one was Jim and Anna’s, back in college.”

“Was that the one with the godawful orange bridesmaids’ dresses?” Rick gives an exaggerated shudder, and the dramatic motion makes the corner of Daryl’s mouth quirk upward.

“Yeah, and the big-ass ice sculpture swan.” Daryl lets out a hard breath through his nose that’s almost, _almost_ a chuckle. “Jim cried like a fuckin’ baby the whole ceremony, even more than Anna did.”

Rick laughs, his white teeth flashing in Daryl’s peripheral vision. “And they had those special wedding cocktails with Fireball whiskey in ‘em. God, I’m _still_ a little drunk from that.”

Daryl does chuckle then, twisting his body so that his own hip presses into the counter as he and Rick face each other. “Open bars, man. Only reason to go to weddings.”

“Well, that and to see you all dressed up,” Rick says, waggling his eyebrows. “You looked so good in that suit. Wish you would have worn it more often.”

Daryl uncrosses his arms and shoves his hands into his jeans pockets, a faint flush tinting his cheekbones. “Shoulda thought of that before you decided to ruin it, then,” he mutters, and Rick laughs again, a light, happy sound that sparkles in Daryl’s veins like sunlight on snow.

“I didn’t hear you complaining at the time,” Rick points out, his voice dipping down into a lower register, and the kitchen suddenly feels much warmer than it had a few seconds before.

Daryl has a flash of memory then, he and Rick tangled together in a closet at the reception hall, Rick’s tongue licking its way into Daryl’s mouth and Rick’s cock leaving trails of pre-come on the smooth wool of Daryl’s suit as they rutted against each other in the dark. Rick’s mouth had tasted like cinnamon and whiskey and sweet frosting from the wedding cake and Daryl had been more drunk on that than on the alcohol itself, moaning as Rick pressed him back against the closet wall and proceeded to take him apart with hands and teeth and tongue, a combination of filthy words and softer promises spilling from both of their lips into the air around them.

“Was a good day,” Daryl says after a moment, blinking and looking off to the side so he doesn’t have to see the same memory reflected in Rick’s eyes.

“It was,” Rick replies quietly, still low and husky and with an edge of nostalgia to it that makes Daryl’s heart ache, but before either of them can say anything else, the silence is broken by the phone ringing, loud and jarring in the softness between them.

Daryl clears his throat and walks past Rick to pull the cordless handset from its mount on the wall. He answers the phone with a gruff _hello_.

“Hey, man. It’s Martinez, from the Roadhouse. Just calling to make sure you’re okay up there.”

Daryl sneaks a glance back at Rick, who’s putting on an oven mitt to check the cookies. “‘M fine,” he mumbles into the phone. “Thanks for checking though.”

“No problem,” Martinez says. “Your truck’s still here. The sheriff came in to ask about it but I told him that you were going to come get it when the ice melts.”

“Thanks for not lettin’ him tow it.” Daryl says absently, watching as Rick puts the cookies on the counter to cool and then starts pouring them both a glass of milk.

“I don’t think he would’ve towed it. He was just killing time before Roger Hendrickson’s retirement party.” Martinez pauses, clearly expecting a response, but Daryl has nothing to say other than a noncommittal grunt, so he continues. “You know Roger? He’s been the deputy sheriff here for years. Gonna be hard to replace.”

Rick gives Daryl a flirtatious little smile and leans back against the counter in what Daryl guesses was meant to be a seductive way, but he accidentally brushes his hand on the hot cookie pan and jumps back with a hissed profanity, and Daryl’s grinning at him before he can stop himself. Rick sucks on his finger for a moment, glaring at the pan, then turns and catches Daryl’s eye, shrugging sheepishly.

The eye contact is so mesmerizing that it takes Daryl a moment to realize that Martinez is still speaking. “--hoped to have somebody to start after New Year’s, but nobody that lives around here is really qualified and it’s tough to get somebody from Atlanta PD to transfer out to the boondocks.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Daryl mumbles, still caught in Rick’s eyes like a bird in a cage.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to talk your ear off,” Martinez says, chuckling. “But anyway, your truck’s still here when you can make it down. I guess I’ll let you go.”

Rick breaks the eye contact then, and Daryl blinks several times before speaking. “Yeah. Thanks again, man.” He hangs up and puts the phone back on its wall dock, then turns back to Rick, who is spooning white frosting onto the cookies and humming ‘It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas’ while he works.

Daryl walks over to stand beside Rick, then picks up the shakers of green and red sugar crystals and sets to work sprinkling them liberally on the frosted cookies. “You remember that time we went to Six Flags and rode that roller coaster three times in a row?”

Rick wrinkles his nose. “Not my finest moment.”

Daryl laughs softly and sprinkles more red crystals on one of the star cookies. “You didn’t actually hurl. It all turned out okay.”

“Well, small victories, I guess,” Rick says, spreading the last cookie with frosting. “I’m not sure how sexy I was leaning over a trash can for half an hour just in case, though.”

Daryl shrugs, still smiling a little. “Gave me an excuse to sit on a park bench staring at your ass for half an hour. I call it a win.”

Rick chuckles and shoulder-bumps Daryl. “What made you think of that?”

“I don’t know,” Daryl says. He pauses for a moment, remembering the sound of Rick screaming in terror as they plummeted down the first drop of the coaster, the way Rick clung to him the whole time and yelled about how he was going to kill him for making him do this, the sound of Rick’s laugh as they scrambled out of their seats at the end of the ride and Rick grabbed his hand and pulled him back to get in line for another round. “Just… that was a good day too. We were happy.”

“I was always happy when I was with you,” Rick says softly, turning to face Daryl.

Daryl sighs heavily and puts down the shaker, then puts his hands on the counter and leans over it, his head bowed. “Then why wasn’t I good enough?” he asks, hating himself for the waver in his voice as the words drip from his lungs like water down a drain.

He hears a sharp intake of breath from beside him, then Rick’s speaks, quiet and breathless. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…” Daryl shakes his head and then tries again. “I just can’t help but think that if I’d been a society boy instead of a no-good redneck from the sticks, you would’ve--”

“Stop,” Rick interrupts, ducking his head to try and force eye contact with Daryl. “Don’t say that. What happened had _nothing_ to do with how much you’re worth. You were always good enough. You were always _more_ than good enough. You were the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Daryl scoffs, but his heart isn’t in it. “So you’re tellin’ me that if I was Daryl Rockefeller you wouldn’t have done any different.”

“It would have been a different situation, that much is true. If you were rich they wouldn’t have had anything to threaten me with. So maybe things _would_ have been different, because I could have told them to fuck off instead of worrying that I was going to get you evicted and make you drop out of school to pay the bills.” Rick puts a hand on Daryl’s shoulder and slowly turns him so that they’re facing each other. Daryl keeps his head bowed, and Rick leans forward and presses his forehead against Daryl’s. “But that has nothing to do with _you_. That’s just money and bank accounts and all sorts of shit that doesn’t matter. What matters is the man you are inside, and I’d be in love with him no matter what name he was saddled with.”

Daryl snorts and flicks his eyes up to Rick’s for the barest second. “I don’t know, man. Not sure how sexy it would be to yell Eugene or Jim Bob in bed.”

Rick smiles, and the expression transfers to Daryl’s face like they’re operating on the same frequency again, the way it used to be. “I could’ve got used to it.”

Rolling his eyes, Daryl takes a step back and starts loading the frosted, sprinkled cookies onto a plate. “Let’s go see what’s on TV.”


	10. Chapter 10

The front door closes with a nearly inaudible _snick_ , but it may as well have been a gunshot for how suddenly it wakes Daryl. He blinks several times, disoriented, before he registers that he’s lying on his couch, covered in a blanket that smells like Rick with a plate full of cookie crumbs on the coffee table in front of him. _Home Alone_ is still playing on the TV, and since the last thing he remembers seeing was the infamous aftershave scene and now Kevin is already in the neighbor’s house turning on the water to cause a flood, he reckons he’s been asleep for about an hour.

His sock-covered feet are still warm from where they’d been laying in Rick’s lap while they watched Christmas movies on TV together, from the tail-end of _Frosty the Snowman_ to the truly terrible _Holiday in Handcuffs_ and then on to _Home Alone_ , and Daryl had gone from a ramrod-straight perch to a relaxed slouch and finally to stretching out all the way along the couch, trying to concentrate on the movies instead of the aching in his chest.

Because fuck if it doesn’t feel real. And _right_. Like the whole universe has shifted back into alignment after being slightly off-center for five years, like this cabin has finally become the home Daryl wants it to be. Full of laughter and companionship and lazy afternoons watching TV together while the rest of the world fades away outside the walls. Full of _Rick_.

Daryl closes his eyes for a moment and then sits up, letting the blanket slip off his shoulders to pool behind him on the couch cushion as he looks around and registers that the closing door means that Rick must be outside, maybe getting something from his car. Daryl stands up and pads softly to the kitchen, heading for the door to look outside and see what Rick is up to.

He stops when he hears Rick’s voice coming from the front porch. Daryl glances at the phone receiver on the wall and notes that the handset is missing. He slides up to the window near the door and stands just out of view, listening through the glass as Rick speaks.

“I know,” Rick is saying. “I should’ve called before now and let you know. But I’m safe, so you can--” A pause, then Rick continues, “Well, it’s not like I control the weather, Dad. Sorry if that inconveniences--”

Daryl crosses his arms tightly over his chest, his jaw twitching with a strange emotion that might be anger and might be joy and might be agony, all depending on what else Rick says to his father during this conversation. He cranes his neck a bit and listens harder to the broken-off sentences Rick is trying to get out in between a lot of interruptions.

“I’m not going to get murdered, Dad. It’s not just some random guy’s house.” Daryl can hear the sigh through the glass before Rick continues. “It’s Daryl’s house. You remember Daryl.”

This time the pause is long, lasting what feels like at least a decade, and Daryl realizes after a long time that he’s holding his breath. He slowly lets it out and pulls in another deliberate lungful of air, waiting to hear the rest of his life play out on his front porch.

“Yeah. Hey, get Mom and put the phone on speaker, okay? I need to talk to you both.”

Daryl’s legs feel weak, and he leans back against the wall to steady himself. After a moment, Rick speaks again. “Hi, Mom. Love you too.” There’s another moment of silence, but a brief one this time. “Okay. So. I know it’s not what you want for me, but I tried to play by your rules for a long time and it just isn’t working. And now I’m up here with Daryl and it feels--no. Please be quiet and listen to me.”

Daryl slides down the wall to sit on the floor, then crosses his arms across his knees and lays his head on them, still listening intently as Rick raises his voice for a moment.

“ _No_. I’ve listened to what you have to say for years now and I’m done. Do you understand?” Rick stops and then lowers his voice back down to a much quieter tone. “I’m in love with him. I’ve always been in love with him and I’m tired of pretending I’m not. And so… I’m going to give this a shot. If I can get him to take me back then I’m never letting go again.”

Daryl’s heart rate speeds up and he bites down on the skin of his arm, trying to distract himself from the panic welling up in his chest. _The moment of truth_ , he thinks as the silence goes on while Rick’s parents are undoubtedly trying to convince him to give up on Daryl again. He wonders what he’ll do if Rick’s answer isn’t what he wants to hear.

“Dad, with all due respect, I don’t give a damn what you think,” Rick says, and Daryl snaps his head up again and blinks. “This is my life. _Daryl_ is my life. And I’m not going to let you fuck it up for me again. I’m going to do this and I hope you can support me, but if you can’t, then that’s fine. I made a decision a long time ago and it was the wrong one, and now I’m going to make it right, with or without your blessing.”

Daryl slowly gets back to his feet, forcing his shaking limbs to support his weight again. He lifts his hand to his mouth and gnaws on his thumbnail as Rick keeps talking.

“Now, that’s not fair--”

 _This is the offer_ , Daryl thinks, and he wonders how many zeroes will be attached to it this time, how much their son’s charade of heterosexuality is worth to them.

“Fine,” Rick snaps, and Daryl’s breath catches in his throat. “You know what? _Take_ me out of the will. Being with the love of my life is worth more than your fucking money. And you can have my car back if you want. The house is in Lori’s name now so you can’t--no, I’m serious. I don’t care anymore. I’m making my choice and you can leave me in the will or take me out of it, but no matter what _you_ do I’m going to choose him.”

Yet another long pause, then a loud exhale from Rick. “Okay. I respect your decision. I think it’s _bullshit_ , but it’s fine.” Daryl inches closer to the door, the palm of his hand sliding over the wall to reach for the doorknob as his heart hammers in his throat. “I guess that’s all I have to say, then. No, I’m not going to change my mind.” Another moment of silence, then: “Okay. Yeah, I understand what you’re saying. So… goodbye, I guess. Have a good life.”

Daryl is out the door before Rick fully finishes pressing the ‘end call’ button, his socked feet ghosting over the wooden porch slats almost like he’s flying, and Rick opens his mouth to say something but Daryl whispers _shut up_ and lets their bodies crash together like ocean waves, like gravity and orbits and time, and Rick slides his arms around Daryl and kisses him, and Daryl sighs against Rick’s mouth and finally-- _finally_ \--lets him, their lips molding together like no time has passed, like they were always destined to end up here on this porch, on this Christmas, clinging to one another with the ice glittering in the trees beyond them.

“I love you,” Daryl breathes, letting his hands creep up from Rick’s neck to tangle in his hair. “I _love_ you.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Rick murmurs. It’s a whisper of victory, of gratitude, of utter relief and the certainty that this is it for both of them, and for the first time in five years Daryl feels like he can fucking _breathe_ again, like the lead weight that had started pressing down on his lungs the moment Rick had said Lori’s name has suddenly dissolved under the gentle heat of Rick’s hands.  

“Fuck me,” Daryl whispers against Rick’s lips as he starts walking backwards toward the house, pulling Rick along with him as he moves. “Wanna be yours again.”

Rick groans, chasing Daryl’s mouth with his own. “I love you,” he rasps out. “I’ve always loved you and I always will.”

Daryl grasps at the doorknob and tugs Rick inside the house, still kissing with desperation, one hand on Rick’s neck and the other coming to settle on his waist. He knows the number of steps it takes to get across his kitchen so he walks backwards with his eyes closed, losing himself in the feeling of having Rick back again, of loving and being loved.

They turn slightly and move through the doorway to the living room, Rick sliding his fingers under Daryl’s shirt and pulling it up, and Daryl breaks the kiss for just long enough to let Rick yank the shirt off over his head, then leans back in to re-claim Rick’s mouth with his own.

Only Rick doesn’t kiss back this time.

Daryl pulls away and furrows his brow as he stares at Rick, who’s looking extremely confused with his gaze directed over Daryl’s shoulder and lights twinkling in his eyes. “What’s wrong?” he rasps, rubbing his thumb over Rick’s neck.

Rick blinks, looks at Daryl, then looks back over Daryl’s shoulder again. “How the hell did you have time to do that?”

Daryl frowns. “Do what?”

“Put up the damn Christmas tree in the living room,” Rick says. “I was outside for what? Maybe five minutes, tops.”

Daryl’s frown slides deeper and he slowly turns around. And there, in front of the couch beside the fireplace, is a beautiful Douglas fir, covered in twinkling Christmas lights and what looks like every ornament that had been in the box Daryl had tipped into a dumpster one day five years ago, from the glass baubles to the shimmering tinsel to Rick’s collection of ugly Dancing Santas, interspersed with Daryl’s own collectible superhero ornaments. It’s the exact tree that they’d made love beside on the last Christmas they’d spent together, down to the placement of the garlands, and water pricks the corners of Daryl’s eyes while he stares at it, his mind racing through everything that had happened in the last few days.

The strange urge to go to a different bar than usual. Waking up in his own bed without his truck. Rick’s GPS malfunctioning. The ice storm, the snow, the smell of cinnamon wafting through the house. Candy canes and colored sprinkles in the cabinets. Rick standing in his living room with aching honesty in his eyes, the taste of his mouth still thick on Daryl’s tongue.   
  
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Daryl mutters. “Guess he _was_ Santa, after all.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH MY GOD IT'S A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE. I told you guys I wouldn't abandon this story forever. A Skarlatha always pays her debts.

Rick takes a few steps toward the tree, and Daryl leans against the doorframe and watches, his throat tightening at the way the twinkling Christmas lights make Rick’s hair shine in vibrant hues of green and white and red, at how the mixture of the scent of gingerbread and Rick’s cologne turn the clock back and make it feel as if everything is new again. Rick looks older now than he had on that last terrible Christmas and Daryl knows that time and sadness have taken their toll on his own youthful looks as well, but it doesn’t matter. They’re here, they’re together, and that’s all Daryl has ever wanted.

“It’s our tree,” Rick says, reaching out to touch one of the ornaments--a small golden reindeer with jeweled horns and Daryl’s name engraved on it. “You kept all this?”

“Nah, I didn’t,” Daryl answers. He pushes away from the doorframe and walks over to stand beside Rick. “Threw it all away right after…” He stops, shrugs. “Well, after.”

“Then how is it here?”

Daryl shakes his head. “It’s a fuckin’ Christmas miracle, I guess.” He trails his fingers over a string of tinsel, letting the silver flow over his hand like rain. “Craziest thing, the other night,” he says after a moment. “I know you’re gonna think this is batshit insane, but I think I met Santa at a bar. _Real_ Santa, not just--” He pauses, then shrugs again and continues. “Anyway, he asked me what I wanted for Christmas and all I could think of was you.”

There’s a long silence, then Rick speaks softly into the room. “I’m here now.”

“I know,” Daryl says, and he turns and reaches for Rick again.

There’s a thick plush blanket covering the hard wood of the floor in front of the Christmas tree, and Rick lays Daryl down on it, hands ghosting over Daryl’s chest and then coming up to cradle his face. Daryl sighs happily and arches up against Rick as he reaches down to pull Rick’s shirt off over his head. Rick leans up to let the shirt come off and then immediately returns his lips to Daryl’s mouth once it’s clear, both of their hearts pounding in their chests, pressed together with the scent of gingerbread drifting over them even though the cookies they’d made were just sugar cookies and had no ginger in them at all.

“This is how we should always be,” Rick whispers against Daryl’s lips. “I’ll never let you go again.”

“I wouldn’t make it,” Daryl murmurs back. He runs his fingers over Rick’s muscular back and grinds upward against him. “I can’t lose you, not again. Please don’t--”

“I won’t,” Rick says, bringing his hand up to lightly cradle Daryl’s cheek. “I swear it to you.”

Daryl lets his fingers trail down Rick’s back and then around his side to splay out over the too-smooth skin of Rick’s sunburst scar. He slides his other hand into Rick’s hair and pulls his head down so that their foreheads press together. “Never let you go again either. I’m yours.”

Rick rocks his hips down into Daryl and kisses the side of his mouth, his cheek, his ear. “I’ve always been yours, too. I’m so sorry I was such a fucking--”

“Don’t talk about it anymore,” Daryl whispers, twisting his fingers tightly in Rick’s curls. “It’s in the past. This is now. Let’s be _now_.”

Rick chuckles quietly, more a rumble under Daryl’s fingers than anything really audible. “Sounds perfect.”

The rest of their clothes come off in a blizzard of fabric, jeans and underwear unceremoniously kicked off to the side, shoes tumbled in a pile at their feet, and then they’re skin-to-skin and it’s _glorious_ , the years between them melting away into nothing, and Daryl hears himself laughing and almost doesn’t recognize the sound of it--the first ray of sunlight after years of unrelenting snow.

“Do you want…” Rick trails off, bracing himself up on one hand while he uses the other to scrape along his own stubbled jaw, staring down at Daryl with hesitation glittering in his ice-blue eyes.

Daryl lifts his hips, groaning as the motion slides his cock along Rick’s stomach like the contours of Rick’s abs were designed just for him. “Just want _you_.”

“Yeah, but…” Rick re-claims Daryl’s lips for a quick, blistering kiss. “Do you want… _me_?”

Daryl blinks a couple of times, searching Rick’s eyes until understanding dawns. “Do I want to _top_?” Rick flushes and nods, and Daryl laughs again. “Ain’t never asked me that before. Did you hit your head or somethin’?”

“No, but I just thought… that maybe you’d want to…”

Daryl pushes Rick off to the side and climbs over him, straddling Rick’s narrow hips and rocking his own so that Rick’s cock rubs against his ass. “I’ll fuck you if you really want it,” he says, then reaches behind himself to give Rick a long, firm stroke. “But man, I been waitin’ five years for your dick an’ that’s what _I_ want. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?”

Rick breathes out an airy chuckle, running his nails lightly over the tops of Daryl’s thighs. “Right.”

Daryl flashes him a quicksilver grin and reaches under the tree for a small bag, then sticks his hand inside and pulls out a red-and-white bottle. He lets his grin spread farther, then shakes the bottle at Rick and pours some of the vaguely peppermint-scented lube into his hand.

Rick raises his eyebrows, then twitches and lets his eyes roll back in his head a bit as Daryl uses his newly-slick hand to stroke him again. “You knew that was there?”

“Nah,” Daryl says, letting go of Rick’s cock and pouring more lube into his hand before reaching behind himself and pressing a finger inside. His back arches involuntarily as he breaches his own opening, a moan escaping from his lips, then he opens his eyes and smiles down at Rick as he starts moving his hand inside himself. “But come on, man, of course he’d put lube under the tree.”

Rick laughs again, planting his feet flat on the blanket for leverage as he rocks his hips up against Daryl. “I always loved this part. Watching you.”

Daryl throws his head back, swallowing hard with his throat bared to the ceiling. “Touch me, then,” he gasps out, his hand working as quickly as he can to get himself ready for Rick.

Rick obliges with a soft groan. His fingers curl around Daryl and Daryl feels his entire body jerk at the contact, every nerve singing with joy and anticipation, and even though he knows that he should probably spend more time preparing--it’s been years, after all, and his body isn’t used to this anymore like it once was--he pulls his fingers out of himself and wriggles to get Rick into position at his entrance.

They lock gazes, the golden star at the top of the tree reflecting in Rick’s eyes, and Daryl takes a deep breath, the air rushing into lungs with ragged edges that are finally smoothing little by little with every touch of Rick’s fingers on his skin. “I love you,” he says, voice strong and sure, and when Rick breathes his name out in answer, Daryl sinks down onto him with a moan.

It’s an odd mix of old and new, with Rick’s cock perfectly filling him the same as it always had while still being a revelation, something bright and fresh and untainted by the miasma of anger and loss that had pervaded all Daryl’s memories of before. Daryl spreads his fingers over the scar on Rick’s side again and starts moving, dragging delicious groans from Rick’s throat with every roll of his hips, every tightening of his muscles, every moan of his own that blends with Rick’s voice like a symphony.

The rhythm they set is hard and fast, nothing like what would normally be called “love-making” but somehow it still counts as such. Rick holds on to Daryl’s hips and meets every downward swing with a hard thrust of his own, and their eyes never leave one another’s as they move together, giving pleasure and taking it in equal measures, two dancers in a choreographed pattern that’s both older than either of them and new with every thrust, every moan, every stroke of Rick’s hand over Daryl’s hot flesh.

“Rick,” Daryl gasps out, his body trembling with need even as it climbs to release. “Take me.”

“Yes,” Rick practically growls, and he pulls Daryl against his chest and rolls them over, taking just a moment to reposition before he’s thrusting in again, and it feels so _good_ that Daryl nearly loses control immediately, back arching up from the blanket as he wraps his arms tightly around Rick and leans up to kiss him, deep and dirty-sweet like cinnamon whiskey burning its way down his throat. The kiss lights up every nerve in his body, wondrous and festive and almost reverent in its fervor, and despite Daryl’s longing for this moment to go on forever, it’s the kiss that pushes him over, the feel of Rick’s lips on his own at the same time that Rick is buried deep in Daryl’s body that sends him flying headlong into the stars, Rick following close behind him with a shout of triumph.

Like last time, there are tears when it’s over, only this time they are mixed with laughter, breathless joy shaking their bodies as they cling to each other in the afterglow. “I love you,” one of them says, and the other laughs and says it back, and neither of them are quite sure who said it first but it doesn’t matter, not really, because for the first time in five years, all is right with the world.

 

//

 

Later, Daryl is wrapped up in a fleece blanket--not the same one from their lovemaking, which has already been relegated to the laundry basket, but a fluffy red one nonetheless--and holding up his new crossbow to test out the diamond-polished laser sight while Rick flips through the manual for a shiny smartwatch that he’d practically squealed while opening. They’re surrounded by a huge amount of wrapping-paper carnage, along with a host of other gifts ranging from peppermints all the way up to obviously expensive crocodile-skin boots, and as Daryl watches Rick struggling with the watch controls but still humming Christmas carols while he works, Daryl is pretty well convinced that he’s never been happier in his life.

But the living room is a mess, so Daryl grabs a gift bag and starts balling up the wrapping paper and tossing it inside, trying to bring a semblance of order to the chaos. He’s reaching under the tree for a stray strip of paper when he sees it: a single small gift bag sitting at the back of the tree, Daryl’s name written on it in a curved, elegant script. He grunts and pulls it out, holding it up for Rick to see.

“Looks like I missed one,” he says, and Rick puts down his smartwatch to observe as Daryl pulls out the tissue paper and reaches inside to find…

A small box.

Daryl looks up at Rick, naked surprise in his eyes, and Rick’s eyebrows shoot up as he recognizes the name of the jeweler on the lid. “Rick,” Daryl says, and Rick smiles softly.

“Think you better open it,” he says. “It was always for you.”

Daryl bites his lip and looks back down at the box. It’s exactly as he remembers it, black leather with gold filigree around the edges, only now it seems lighter, no longer weighted down with misunderstandings and incorrect conclusions. “You still want me to have it?” he asks, voice soft and rough.

“If you’ll have _me_ ,” Rick says. He scoots closer on the wood floor and puts his hand over Daryl’s on the box. “We have a lot to catch up on. A lot to figure out. And I understand if you don’t want to wear it until we’ve got all that settled. But… yeah. I want you to have it. I want to be yours.”

Daryl lifts his eyes again, locks them with Rick’s star-blue ones. He leans forward and drops a soft, slow kiss on Rick’s lips, then presses the box into Rick’s hand and sits back. “Give it to me on our wedding day,” he says, a lopsided smile on his face.

Rick’s face explodes into a supernova of light. “Does that mean yes?”

“We do got a lot to figure out first,” Daryl says. He lifts a hand and puts it on Rick’s cheek, fingers trailing over the rough stubble there. “But… yeah. Yes. Long as we can get through all that, I’d love nothing more than to marry you.”

Rick leans forward again, kisses him quick and bright like a shooting star. “You just tell me when you’re ready.”   
  
Daryl smiles, turning his head to look out the window at the ice and snow sparkling in the moonlight outside. “How about next Christmas?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After this is an epilogue set a year in the future, which will be posted in the next couple of days. Like, the actual next couple of days, not the definition of "couple of days" I've been working on for most of this story. Thanks for sticking with me and not giving up on me!


End file.
